Unicoi State Park, GA

I made my 1st solo fly fishing trip for trout. This was only my 4th trip, I have always had Jack with me in the past and Warren and Jack the last time, so I was a little nervous, but excited too.

I got to go fishing below the dam at Unicoi state park, in Ga on Sunday and again on Tuesday. I wanted to go Monday but it rained all day:(

Sunday: I talked to a game warden who pointed me toward a beaver dam about a 1/2 mile below the dam on Smith Creek. When I got there, there was already a guy fly fishing and the pool wasn't big enough for the 2 of us so I just stayed up stream until he finished. He was standing on a big rock toward the end of the pool, he told me he could see plenty of trout but couldn't get any bites. I got to the lower end of the pool and decided that standing on top of the rock might give you a good view, but if you could see the trout, they can probably see you too. So, I stood behind the rock and went to work. I tried a number of different flies. I had talked to the guys at Unicoi Outfitters in Helen, GA that said that they were hitting small soft hackle flies and small stonefly nymphs.

I tried a little of everything with 3 trout to show for it. One was only the size of a minnow, but it had a pink stripe down it. Surely they stock them larger than that, so I assume it was bred there in the creek by stocked trout. Which makes it my first "wild" trout, if that counts for a "wild" trout. ;) I took pictures, but trying to hold my rod, camera and fish was a bigger challenge than I thought, so I am sorry for the poor camera angles.

I caught another fish, but couldn't really ID it. It sort of favored a bluegill, but it didn't have the blue on the gill. The pic of it is terrible, but I'd like to know what it was, I caught it on a wooly bugger that I tied. It is the first fish I caught on a flie that I tied.

Tuesday: Success!! :D I went back to the same hole above the beaver dam. Again I had to wait while 2 guys finished fishing the hole. They were fisghing with conventional poles from the bank. They had trout spooked everywhere. I went back to the same spot and stood on the other side of the big rock and waited a few minutes to let the trout settle down. I could see them moving around in the water, but after a few minutes the stacked up in the stream and seemed to be ok. I went to work with a small stonefly nymph, I'm not sure of the size. I caught one almost immediately, then nothing. I could see them moving, but I couldn't catch anything. I even tried a strike indicator but it made casting harder and it seemed to spook the trout. I took it off and went to really concentrating on the end of my fly line. At the smallest of twitches I'd set the hook. Mostly I got nothing, but then sometimes I got a nize sized rainbow.:D Soon, I had caught 5 bows with that little nymph. One even jumped 15ft into the air while I had him on the line. Well, maybe more like a foot and a half.;)
Long story short I had a wonderful time. Sorry for such a long post, but we got back home last night and I couldn't wait to tell you guys.

thanks for reading such a long post,
hNt

PS None of this would have been possible without this site and the members that make up FAOL. I would have given up along time ago on fly fishing, instead I am now hooked. :D (pun intended)

Thanks hungNtree, i got some good smiles this morning reading your report...sounds to me like you're well on your way to becoming one of the great fly fisherman. Nice trouts too and i'll take a guess and say green eared sunfish....there may be other names for it though.

Cheers,

MontanaMoose

Great looking stretch of water, looks like my kinda fishing! I would be as excited as you are, fishing behind others and coming outa there with fish is a good sign to me that you got skills...;)

Glad to hear you made it down to Uncoi and had fun harrassing the trout. I have never fished Smith Creek, is that the name, but know where it is. The guy to owns the the land just downstream told me several years ago he had some really nice trout on his section of the stream and some really big mean dogs.

If you come back you might want to try fishing the lake with a "cork" fly, shaped to look like a food pellet around one of the fishing platforms. I watch a visitor land a brown that weighed about 8 lbs. on the cheap little scale I had with me. He caught it on a food pellet the rangers had dropped the day before.

The lake also has some bream and bass in it, the only time I have fished it everything I caught was small.

Uncle Jesse,

You are right, the name of the creek is Smith Creek. I saw a game warden the first day, he told me there was a couple of nice holes up close to the dam and then the hole I fished at the beaver dam. I went down there, because I figured less people would be willing to walk that far. I don't know how the other holes were, he said they were fished pretty hard. I had a great time though and would definitely reccommend walking downstream to that beaver dam.

hNt

Contratulations on the successes. Nice report, and sounds like you made a lot of right choices and created your own luck. Well done.

- Jeff

Good report and beautiful stream pics. Post many more of those and I'll start whimpering in my cube...

Ed

Nice report. I remember the first trout I caught on a fly. I haven't started to tie my own yet, so that is still to come. That first pic looks like a red breasted sunfish. The stream version of a bluegill! I catch them by the dozens on my home water.

Great report, thanks for sharing. Your first fish on a fly you tied is a great memory.